Commentary: Holland/Early Years

Vincent van Gogh Self-Portrait 1889 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney

This image is one of some thirty-five self-representations by Vincent van Gogh. As part of an artistic tradition of introspection and self-analysis, the self-portrait was appropriate for a sensitive and thoughtful artist such as Van Gogh. There were also practical reasons for his doing a large number of such works. Professional models were not always available or within the means of a struggling artist. Over the course of his career, Van Gogh would use his own features to explore a variety of painting styles and techniques. His self-portraits constitute fascinating documents of his development as both an artist and an individual.

Self-portraits also stand within the Dutch tradition. Among the great examples is Rembrandt, whose self-portraits Van Gogh would have known. Van Gogh may have emulated his fellow Dutchman as a way of monitoring his own personal and artistic progress. Rembrandt's self-portraits are poignant and moving, as are Van Gogh's. Van Gogh was an emotionally charged artist, which is part of his appeal.

Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 in Groot Zundert, in the province of North Brabant in the Netherlands, very near the Belgian frontier. He was the first son of Theodorus van Gogh, a minister of the Gospel, and the eldest of six children -- three boys and three girls. Not surprisingly, religion remained a central theme throughout his life, and piety emerges repeatedly in his art.

Van Gogh's early years can be seen as a series of seemingly disjointed experiences. In 1869, at the age of sixteen, he embarked on the vocation his father had chosen for him, as an art dealer. This seems unusual; one might expect that he would have been directed to a religious career. Nevertheless Van Gogh spent three years from 1869 to 1872 working at the Goupil Gallery in The Hague, Netherlands. He was then employed at Goupil's offices in London (1873-1875) and Paris (1875-1876). His younger brother Theo, to whom he was very close throughout his life, joined the Goupil Gallery in Brussels in 1873, taking up the vocation that Vincent would abandon. It is often forgotten that Van Gogh was well versed in the history of art and knowledgeable about nineteenth-century art in particular. In London, for example, he collected illustrations by social realist artists of the previous generation, images that chronicled Britain's socio-economic problems. He began to read French and English literature, especially writings by authors such as Emile Zola that probed the human condition.

Van Gogh continued as an apprentice art dealer until he was dismissed in 1876. By this time he had become zealously pious and, drawn back to his religious roots, decided to devote his life to the service of others. This noble goal was very much in keeping with Van Gogh's expansive and generous nature. At this point he worked at numerous jobs, including as a schoolmaster and as a clerk in a bookstore in Dordrecht. Finally in 1877 he decided to study theology and become a minister, following his father's footsteps. But he did not like the formal training -- such as the study of Latin and Greek -- preferring to address the humble needs of the common people. Thus he left theology for a three-month course in Brussels to become a missionary, a shorter path to his goal. In November 1878 he was sent as a lay missionary to the Borinage, a coal-mining district in the south of Belgium. This was a region of intense poverty, where people faced harsh and difficult living conditions. Van Gogh, a compassionate man, was awakened here to the suffering of others.

Van Gogh did not excel as a preacher but proved to be a good nurse, owing to his empathy for the misery he saw around him. He was even moved to give away his clothes and other possessions and become more like the people to whom he ministered. Eventually the heads of the missionary order came to visit and were shocked to find him living among the impoverished; they removed him from his post because of these "excesses."

In the summer of 1880 Van Gogh began to realize his calling as an artist. Throughout this time he had been sketching people he encountered in an attempt to understand them and their travails. His earliest drawings depicted miners. He also began to make copies after the French painter of peasant life, Jean-François Millet, who would be a touchstone for Van Gogh his entire life.

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